Visualizing the dynamic movements and interactions between biomolecules remains a challenge, even when using state-of-the-art super-resolved fluorescence imaging techniques. Towards this goal, we have recently developed new technology, called Single-Molecule Orientation Localization Microscopy (SMOLM), for imaging the positions and orientations of blinking fluorescent molecules. SMOLM uses new optical hardware, such as the Duo-spot and Tri-spot point spread functions, to improve the orientation measurement sensitivity of epifluorescence microscopes. In addition, we have developed new regularized maximum likelihood estimation algorithms to measure the locations and orientations of many molecules simultaneously within each camera frame. We have recently demonstrated SMOLM for imaging nanodomains within supported lipid bilayers and the organization of amyloid aggregates, revealing chemical composition and structural details that cannot be resolved by conventional fluorescence imaging.

 

Matthew Lew joined Washington University in July 2015. Before arriving in St. Louis, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the de la Zerda Group in Structural Biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering working in the laboratory of W. E. Moerner, a WashU alumnus and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for “the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.”

Professor Lew was an invited speaker at the 25^th Solvay Conference on Chemistry “Computational Modeling: From Chemistry to Materials to Biology”, the Gordon Research Conference “Single-Molecule Approaches to Biology,” the 17^th International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI 2020), and the 5^th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society of Canada. He is a recipient of a 2017 NSF CAREER Award for his project entitled “CAREER: Nanoscale sensing and imaging using computational single-molecule nanoscopy.” He has also received the Second Place Poster Award at the Gordon Research Conference “Single-Molecule Approaches to Biology”, the PicoQuant Young Investigator Award at SPIE Photonics West, and is a Sialog: Advancing Bioimaging Fellow. In 2020, he received the Excellence in Teaching Award from Emerson Electric Co. and the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at Washington University.

To request for meeting link, please write to phweb@ust.hk.